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SVTmaniac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 30, 2013
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RCS was working all day yesterday with multiple friends. Today halfway through a conversation it gave me a send error and reverted back to SMS and now every single one of them is SMS when it was working fine yesterday. Restarted the phone twice, airplane mode and back on all the stuff you’d normally try. Only have SMS today. Anyone else?
 
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RCS from my iPhone 14 Pro was working fine when I first upgraded to iOS18. When I started using my iPhone 16 Pro now all messages to Android users are being sent via SMS again. I checked, and RCS is turned on.

Did your situation ever resolve on its own?
 
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I’m wondering about this too. I’m on AT&T, and RCS was working all last week on my 15PM, and continued to work on Friday after moving to my 16PM. My girlfriend has a Galaxy S23 on Verizon and all texts up through Friday night were RCS, but Saturday morning suddenly only SMS worked. The text field shows RCS still, but anytime I text her it immediately fails, and the only way I can text her to to revert to SMS.

RCS does work for other people though. Was texting someone on T-Mobile a bunch this weekend and it was all RCS. Have also texted others on Verizon and AT&T and RCS works for those. So why would it suddenly not work just for 1 person? It keeps trying but always fails immediately.

I’ve toggled RCS multiple times, reset my network settings, tried on and off WiFi, etc.

Is this an AT&T issue, Verizon, Apple, or something with my phone? I’m not even sure where to go next.
 
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Been dealing with the same issue. Sadly, it’s an issue it’s Samsung users. A lot of Samsung users are still not using Google Messages and are using a Samsung messaging app that uses ‘RCS Chats’. RCS chats on Samsung has been glitching with iPhone users and it’s been annoying. It works for a bit then stops working. In my case, when I message my Samsung friends individually, the RCS intermittently works but when I do a group chat, it completely breaks and I have to revert to SMS. For context, one friend is a Pixel user and the other is Samsung user. The pixel friend I have 0 issues but the Samsung friend, that’s where we are seeing the issues.
 
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I was beta testing iOS 18, and RCS was great. Ever since it went public, I can't get it to work at all. I just tried 18.1 to see if that helped, but it says "Activation unsuccessful" Not sure what to do. T-Mo.
 
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I was beta testing iOS 18, and RCS was great. Ever since it went public, I can't get it to work at all. I just tried 18.1 to see if that helped, but it says "Activation unsuccessful" Not sure what to do. T-Mo.
What do you mean? You have an iPhone and it says activation unsuccessful? Or you have an Android and you’re messaging iPhone users using 18.1?
 
So i managed to turn it on just now. Very strange.
I have two e-sims in my phone. I never use my Tmobile line for text, just data.

Turned the tmobile RCS service OFF, went back to the chat that was SMS before, and it is RCS literally the second I turned the second line RCS off.
 
Update, it seems to have updated on all my iphone chats, but imessage desktop it is hit or miss, with the same contacts.
 
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Most of the Android users I am chatting with are now via RCS on my iPhone. When I use my Mac, there are still some that are going through SMS. I imagine this will resolve on its own over time. Maybe its needs some type of trigger.
 
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My texts keep reverting back to SMS and my group chat members report that new conversations appear on their phones every time I reply to a message. The new groups have no history so it looks like I’m just talking to myself.
 
My texts keep reverting back to SMS and my group chat members report that new conversations appear on their phones every time I reply to a message. The new groups have no history so it looks like I’m just talking to myself.
It‘s cause Apple treats RCS and SMS/MMS as the same category ("Text Messages"). They switch between both, depending on availability, on demand.
That‘s a known issue with Apples RCS implementation that actively goes against the RCS spec / UP.

The 2 standards are inherently not compatible/ interchangeable when it comes to group messaging (e.g. RCS supports 100 users, MMS varies between 6-10 per group depending on carrier). What happens when your 20+ RCS group has an iOS user in there that currently has no RCS connection? Hope we never find out.

A few people already reported this as an issue on the Feedback app, it‘s currently sitting at "more than 10" reports with no comment from Apple.

//EDIT: 100 users for RCS groups is what UP specifies as the standard that everyone should implement, no idea if Apple did that or they artificially cap it at 32 to match iMessage group size.
 
RCS worked great for the first few weeks of iOS 18.1 (i started at 18.1) and now it doesn’t work at all! I can’t even send SMS messages. WTF.

I deleted conversations and disabled RCS and MMS and restarted the phone, which got SMS to work for a few messages but then it started failing again. I can receive just fine but sending is entirely broken.

I am guessing this is due to iCloud BS because I have seen weird situations on older devices that I CANNOT update where it shows the conversation as a separate convo for RCS and it says something like message between me and the other person but lists their name TWICE, as if it’s a group of me and two clones of the same person. I’ve deleted those conversations on other devices (iPad and iMac, both stuck on older versions), but this doesn’t help.

I am SO DAMNED SICK OF THE TECH INDUSTRY
 
RCS worked great for the first few weeks of iOS 18.1 (i started at 18.1) and now it doesn’t work at all! I can’t even send SMS messages. WTF.

I deleted conversations and disabled RCS and MMS and restarted the phone, which got SMS to work for a few messages but then it started failing again. I can receive just fine but sending is entirely broken.

I am guessing this is due to iCloud BS because I have seen weird situations on older devices that I CANNOT update where it shows the conversation as a separate convo for RCS and it says something like message between me and the other person but lists their name TWICE, as if it’s a group of me and two clones of the same person. I’ve deleted those conversations on other devices (iPad and iMac, both stuck on older versions), but this doesn’t help.

I am SO DAMNED SICK OF THE TECH INDUSTRY
Well, came here to see as of 18.beta 2 and 3 the RCS seems broken from sending...as fails and seems to treat all messages even iPhone contact ones as RCS. I turn off iMessage and restart and then turn on and works for a few minutes. So is a bug. On iPhone 16 pro max.
 
This ludicrous garbage software fault has now progressed to where I can no longer send my GF messages at all, anywhere. I can’t send her RCS to her droid. I can’t send SMS without replying in a “group” conversation it creates when my watch replies with Siri, and now I can’t send her iMessages to her MacBook. I am beyond pissed off at Apple and the whole goddamned industry. It’s all garbage.

EDIT: rebooting my iPhone corrected the iMessage problem. I’ve deactivated RCS. Despite working for the first several weeks, it obviously is broken now. I’m so fed up. Beyond.
 
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